


I'll be Here

by booksandtea15



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Break Up, F/M, Healing, Heartbreak, M/M, Other, Planting, Plants, Post-Break Up, finding love by accident
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 16:31:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17410337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/booksandtea15/pseuds/booksandtea15
Summary: Ginny nestled into the sunken old couch, cradling a cup of tea to her chest, eyes fixed on the flickering fire, the only light in the room. Harry sat on the other end of the couch, turned towards her, hands steepled together in front of him and that familiar worried twinge to his forehead. She knew him like the back of her hand, and she knew that, whatever he was readying himself to say, she wasn’t going to like it even a little bit.





	I'll be Here

Ginny nestled into the sunken old couch, cradling a cup of tea to her chest, eyes fixed on the flickering fire, the only light in the room. Harry sat on the other end of the couch, turned towards her, hands steepled together in front of him and that familiar worried twinge to his forehead. She knew him like the back of her hand, and she knew that, whatever he was readying himself to say, she wasn’t going to like it even a little bit. 

Sighing, she lowered her cup, placing it on the low, ring-stained coffee table in front of her. “Harry, you’re giving me a headache just by looking at you. What’s up?” Ginny turned herself towards him, pulling her legs up and crossing her arms, hiding the way her hands were shaking. 

“I--” he paused, frowning harder, the small round glasses he still insisted on wearing slipping down his nose. Ginny hands itched to reach out, to push it up his nose with a fond little smile, and a peck on the nose. She didn’t, though. This didn’t seem like that kind of situation. 

“Harry,” she began, clearing her throat, shaking her head so her long, unbound hair fell around her. “You called me all the way to my  _ mother’s  _ house on a Saturday night because you knew they would be out on their date night and you didn’t want to do it in our place. For some reason. Which, you know, isn’t very reassuring. Out with it.”

“I want to break up.”

Ginny, one hand reaching out to scratch an itch on her ankle, stopped short, her chest squeezing, blinking furiously at her wooly sock. “What?”

Harry, never one to stop when he was on a roll, thundered on, even as his voice became higher and higher as he spoke, ending on a squeak. “Yes. I realise this might be a bit, ah,  _ sudden _ , but even you have to admit that we’ve drifted apart these last couple of months--” We have? Ginny thought. “--and. And I’ve kinda met someone else.” Here Harry stopped, a dopey, soft grin overtaking his mouth, one that Ginny had only ever seen when he talked about Mars bars (and which now made her realise this was something  _ big _ ). “I’ve met someone else and,” he looked up with bright eyes, seeking something in her Ginny wasn’t sure existed, some sort of recognition, something other than a vast emptiness and a faint, echoing ‘no’ that was ringing louder by the second. “And he’s wonderful. I think, I think I might be in love.”

_ I thought you were in love with me _ .

It’s on the tip of Ginny’s tongue, pushing up against her throat, but she swallowed it down, pushes it into a small hard pit in her stomach, promising herself she’ll deal with it later. “Oh.” Harry’s smile dims, and she clears her throat, tries again. “Oh, that’s. That’s really something, Harry. Wow.”

It wasn’t much, wasn’t encouraging at all, at least in Ginny’s ears, but Harry’s smile brightened again. 

“I  _ knew _ you’d understand, Gin,” he exclaimed, hands rubbing excitedly against each other. “I told Hermione she didn’t know you as I did, that we both knew this was coming to an end--”  _ Oh _ , she thought again, “--and that it would be perfectly civil and fine.” Harry got to his feet, almost springing upright, walking to and fro. “You won’t  _ believe _ what a burden of my shoulders this is. I’ve never felt like this before.” He stopped suddenly, spinning around and bending down in front of him, giving her a solid kiss on the forehead. “Thanks for being so cool about this. I have to go tell Draco. Talk later, yeah?” 

He didn’t wait for an answer, stepping out the door and opening and slamming the front door behind him. 

For a few seconds, Ginny couldn’t do anything more than stare blankly out in front of her while the disbelief Harry’s initial words had produced faded, slowly, replaced by a loud, red, ringing noise. With remarkably steady hands, Ginny reached out for her cup, taking a long, hot sip. She swallowed, sighed, set the cup down again, and  _ screamed _ .

Later she would justify her display of emotion on the fact that she knew she was home alone, that her mother wouldn’t come in scolding her and then smothering her when she found out what it was all about. But, really, she wasn’t thinking then. She was doing her best to  _ not _ think. She was… in pain. She was in pain, deep, blistering, soul-crushing,  _ unbelievable _ pain, and she was letting it out the only way her shell-shocked body could think of. 

She didn’t know how long she screamed, how long that pain endured. She was pretty sure some part of her mind took pity on her and decided she didn’t have to consciously experience that. She didn’t know how long it endured, didn’t know how long she was out.

She remembered blinking her eyes open again, after, her throat feeling sore and hoarse, eyes stinging and cheeks tacky with the remnant of tears, curled up in ball on the couch, trying to hold together the edges of herself, since it felt like a giant, ragged hole had been punched right through her, the edges still bleeding, getting caught on the edges of her bones and  _ tugging _ . 

She buried her face in a cushion and, for a second, it felt like someone was carding their fingers through her hair, rubbing her back, the phantom memory of her mother holding her tightly as she cried her little heart out because her brothers had excluded her from their quidditch game  _ yet again _ . 

When she opened her eyes again, however, she was alone in the big, silent house, the fire lower but still burning merrily. Ginny took a deep breath, hissed at the feeling of air scraping down her sore throat, and took another. 

She didn’t have to think now. She didn’t have to think tonight. There was logistics to figure out; their apartment, who she would be taking to the team dinner next week, a thousand little things that were starting to creep up on her, a thousand little things that she had trained herself to keep track off. But that was tomorrow’s problem. Maybe the day after that. Maybe even the day after that. 

Now, she had to try and sleep, try and stop crying long enough to slip away into darkness, since new tears were already slipping down her cheeks, salty on her lips, gathering on her chin. 

Her mother had been talking about converting her old room into a sewing room, claiming her current room had an awful wind that he old bones just couldn’t handle anymore, though Ginny had seen those ‘old bones’ chasing after Ron and Hermione’s little Rose with alacrity, but Ginny knew she hadn’t done it yet, if she was ever planning on doing it. After all, Bill’s room was still in pristine condition, even though he had been out of the house numerous years before Ginny even thought of being done with Hogwarts.

Sniffing, she took her cup, emptied out the dregs in the sink, and placed the cup in the to-be-washed pile. When she made it up to her room, after numerous points where her legs refused to move until she had completely soaked her arm, she simply flopped down on the bed, trying not to smell the stuffy, untouched air, pulling the cold, unwarmed blanket over her head. This was the first time in four years that she was in bed alone, the first time in years that she didn’t have another body warming the bed alongside her. 

She laid like that for a while, curled tight, pressing against her chest, trying to convince herself the empty feeling in her chest really  _ was _ all her imagination, trying to stop sobbing long enough to catch her breath, before getting up, riffling around in her closet until her hand closed around the fluffy, patchy head of Fluffy, so named for all the fluff the vaguely bear-shaped plushie had lost over the years, and climbed back into bed, pressing the bear tight,  _ tight _ against her chest.

It didn’t really make a difference, didn’t make her feel less empty, less in pain, but the pressure of its small, knobbly little head against her chin helped her feel less alone and, finally, after she had heard her parents return home, after she had pretended to be asleep when they stopped in front of her slightly open door, whispering furiously, she fell into a short, fitful sleep.

\---

Barely four hours later, Ginny was shocked awake by her wand vibrating and blaring somewhere in her clothes, the jarring sound harsh and unpleasant. Which was exactly why she had chosen it, of course. She had to get up early each day to get to practise, and Ginny liked being there even earlier than most team members, early enough to watch the sun starting to peek over the horizon, watch the world flush with the bright, pink light of dawn. 

Harry hated her alarm. He hated being woken up each time it went off. He--

Ginny shook her head, once, twice, a few times. For a few seconds, after waking up, she hadn’t been thinking. Her mind was stuck on some half-forgotten dream, stuck on the jarring sensation of being shoved into the land of the living by force. 

But her heart hurt. Her chest hurt. It felt almost like that one time Ginny had fallen off her broom and landed face down on the ground, ending up with a bruise overtaking her entire chest, sore and aching for two weeks after. Except, this time, when she pressed her palm over it and  _ pushed _ , there was no corresponding increase and decrease of pain. There was no mark on her pale, freckled skin when she pulled her shirt out of the way, wanting to see it for herself. 

It was an aching, continuous mass of pain, localised between her lungs, hurting, hurting,  _ hurting _ . It wasn’t going away. When she pressed harder, all she achieved was an aching hand. 

Okay. Ginny took a deep breath. She took another, and spent a few minutes trying to swallow back the tears swimming down her cheeks, sobbing quietly. 

Okay. Okay.

Ginny didn’t know what one did when they got their heart broken, because what else could this horrible, broken feeling in her chest  _ be _ , but she had read a lot of romance novels, had rolled her eyes when the heartbroken heroine threw herself onto her bed and locked herself in her room, crying, refusing to get up and do anything  _ useful _ , and Ginny had always thought them particularly silly and weak willed girls.

She had always promised herself she would never be that silly over a man, would never let someone derail her life that much. So, even though she couldn’t imagine going out to face the world, couldn’t imagine facing pitying faces and smiles, couldn’t bear the thought of having to choke down her tears, (because whatever Ginny was, she wasn’t a fucking  _ crybaby _ ), she owed her younger self this moment of strength, and heaved herself to her feet. 

Only to collapse almost immediately afterward as she realised that, of course, she had no clothes with her. She had expected to talk to Harry last night, in the comfort of her childhood home, and then go home.  _ Home _ , to the apartment they had been sharing for five years.  _ Home _ , where all their belongings had become so hopelessly intertwined Ginny was sure she wouldn’t know what belonged to her or to Harry.

Oh god. She had to, she had to go get her  _ things _ , and she had to, she had to  _ see _ Harry, and, and  _ talk _ to him again and--

Ginny realised she was hyperventilating, realised her vision was dissolving into little black spots in front of her eyes, realised she was tilted backwards, knees weak, and she sat down, bending forward, forcing her tight chest to breathe slow and steady, in and out, in and out. 

It was a familiar routine, one she had employed numerous times after the events in her first year, when thoughts of black ink bleeding through pages and soft, understanding words melting into a chilling laugh invaded her dreams, sometimes even her waking thoughts. It was a familiar routine, and it helped stop the tears threatening to well up again.

This was-- Well, it wasn’t fine. Not even a little bit, not even at all. 

But it wouldn’t kill Ginny. She’d been through worse. They’d  _ all _ been through worse, and even though her heart was manfully insisting that, no, really, this was the most awful thing ever and really Ginny couldn’t be expected to continue living through circumstances like this, it wasn’t, and she could. She could.

Ginny took another deep breath, clearing her head. She had training clothes at the locker room at the Quidditch field. It wasn’t completely unheard of for her, or other members of the team, to show up in their pajamas, bleary-eyed and yawning hugely. It wasn’t, wasn’t  _ routine _ for her, not at all, but she had done it once or twice before, surely, and, really, who gave a fuck. There were clothes there, and she didn’t need to go ho-- to go the apartment, for now. That was enough.

One step at a time, Ginny. One step at a time. Surviving a school year with the Carrows had been much more harrowing than this, surely, and she had survived that with only minimal mental and physical trauma. She could survive this too. 

\---

The locker room was still deserted when she arrived, and Ginny was silently thankful for that. It  _ wasn’t _ odd for someone to stumble into the dressing room still in their pajamas, but it  _ was _ odd for them to be clad in the same clothes they left in the previous night. Which, as soon as Ginny left her room, she realised she was. Because, of course, she wasn’t wearing pajamas. Hadn’t bothered to change, too wrung out and immersed in her head to care. 

She eyed the showers with a calculating eye, but decided against it. She was going to get sweaty and dirty in a little while anyway. She  _ did _ wash her face, however, patting gently beneath her eyes, trying to reduce the redness and swelling which made her look quite a bit like she’d been stung by a bee.

When the rest arrived, in drips and drags and with various degrees of wakefulness and volume, Ginny was already on her broom, cheeks cold with the morning wind whipping against it as she did laps around the field. She had successfully managed to wrap all her feelings up in a little ball and stow it away. The cover may be thin and prone to spill with the slightest tilt or provocation, but, for now, she was okay. She’d make it through training. 

Ginny made her way back to the ground, nodding at her teammates as they mumbled greetings at each other. No one was especially talkative in the morning, preferring the drills waking them up gradually to the grating voices of their teammates. At least, that was Ginny’s opinion. 

Nadia Keller, their captain, called them together, eyes flicking over them all as she did her habitual morning count. It had happened, once or twice, that someone overslept and needed to be dragged out of their beds by a very sour-faced Nadia or apologetic teammate. Ginny might be imagining it, probably was, given the foggy state of her mind, but Nadia’s eyes seemed to linger on her, before moving on and announcing their morning drills in a loud, no-nonsense voice. 

Ginny heard groans as it was revealed that Nadia had a particularly brutal program planned for them that morning, whispered complaints that quickly petered out as Nadia’s eyes found the culprits, but Ginny, honestly, was happy. Strenuous exercise meant she would get exhausted more quickly. Being exhausted meant she would have no time to fucking  _ think _ . 

So, without any complaints, Ginny kicked off, nodding as Zadie, her best friend on the team, joined her. They always partnered up when pairs were needed, and preferred doing drills together, as they were the only ones on the team that managed to give each other a run for their money. 

The morning passed quickly, the pain in Ginny’s chest fading into a background hum as the practise wore on, drills turning into practising formations and catching the snitch.

The sun was high in the sky, nearing ten at Ginny’s estimation, when there was a small commotion down in the stands, the women around Ginny starting to giggle and point and those nearest to the commotion flying closer, their shrill laughter ringing out harshly. Ginny squinted, banking slightly closer and when she saw the rough tumble of black hair and round glasses, it felt like a lightning bolt had struck her full on, so paralysed did she feel. 

There was a rushing, static sound in Ginny’s ear and it was only when Zadie gently tapped her on the shoulder, calling her name softly, that she moved, turning too-wide eyes on Zadie, desperately trying not to scream.

Zadie frowned, floating closer. “Gin? What’s up? You look a bit… spooked.”

Ginny bit her tongue, hard, turning her eyes back to the stands, where green eyes were fixed on her. “Zadie, I, uh, I have to go. I really need to go. I--” Ginny tried her best to come up with an excuse, a cover,  _ anything _ that didn’t have to do with the fact that she felt she might lose her grip on her broom if she didn’t get off  _ right that second _ , but. She couldn’t. She just. Couldn’t. “I have to go.”

Ginny pointed the nose of her broom downwards, leaning forward and approaching the ground with such a speed she barely pulled up in time, stumbling as she hopped off her broom and walked into the locker room with a straight back. 

She was taking deep breaths as she placed her broom down with remarkably stable hands. She was unlacing the chest piece of her practise uniform when she heard soft, hesitant steps behind her, coming to a stop as her arms fell to her sides. 

She knew those steps. Knew those steps like she knew the sound of her mother’s humming while she cooked, like she knew the way her father snored. She  _ knew _ those sounds, had listened for it many a night, contentment settling in her bones as she heard them returning at night, secure in the knowledge that he was safely home. She  _ knew _ those steps and, for the first time since she could remember, they filled her with dread. 

“Harry.” Her voice didn’t waver, didn’t break, and, for that, she was proud. “What are you doing here?”

There was silence behind her for a second, a long, lingering second, long enough for Ginny to realise that, despite her steady voice, she was breathing more heavily than her situation warranted and, of course, her tear ducts had started working again. She could have sworn she’d cried them dry already. Her own fault for being hydrated, she supposed. 

Harry shuffled behind her and the creaking of a bench announced that he had sat down. He intended to stay, then. Ginny’s arms rose again, stiffly, continuing their plucking at her chest piece. Fine, he could be as quiet as he wanted. She would change, and leave, and he couldn’t stop her. 

Harry cleared his throat behind her, and the sudden, overwhelming knowledge that this man, this beautiful man whom she had loved longer than she could even comprehend, wasn’t hers anymore, almost knocked her to her feet, the wound in her chest raw, aching, pulsing. He wasn’t hers. She could never hug him again, could never kiss the smile off his face, could never hold his hand under the table at her parents’ cause she just wanted to touch him. That was done. It was gone. It was  _ gone. _

“It… has been pointed out to me that I may have been a bit insensitive last night.” Ginny was frozen, knuckles white around the stiff string of her gear, shoulders hunched underneath the sudden, intense, painful knowledge. She could hear the self-deprecating tone in Harry’s voice when he spoke next, and through her haze of pain she had the distinct need to slap him. “Actually, Hermione said I was a real prick, and Ron almost decked me.”

“I wish he did.”

Ginny bit her lip. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Hadn’t meant to allow it to escape the tight confines of her mind. 

“That’s fair.” 

He was still smiling. He was still smiling, she could  _ hear  _ it. He was treating this like it was nothing, like it hadn’t completely destroyed Ginny, like she wasn’t holding herself together with spit and tea and sheer bloody-mindedness. 

She could continue to let him think that. She could let him think that she, carefree, spitfire Ginny was barely affected, that she was already bounced back, like this was okay. Like this was  _ okay _ . She could console her damnable pride by doing that, by pretending he didn’t hurt her, but… but that would mean the guilt he carried would be lessened. That would mean he would get to walk away from this not feeling every bit of shit weasel he was. 

Ginny could feel anger returning to her veins, could feel it burning up into her chest and cauterizing the wound there, (even though she had no doubt it would reopen in short time), felt it colour her face and slow the track of tears on her cheeks to a trickle. She welcomed it, holding it close, holding it fast, leaning on it for what she wanted to say. For what he needed to hear. 

Ginny turned around, hands clenched at her sides, mouth pulled into a flat line, turned to face Harry. Whose smile, (she  _ knew _ he was smiling), she was pleased to note, melted away like so much snow in summer. Ginny took a deep breath. Harry looked scared.  _ Good _ .

“That’s  _ fair? That’s  _ fair? You dump me for, for  _ another guy _ , and you think all you deserve is my sweaty older brother punching you?”

Harry grimaced, head tilting downwards. “Gin…”

“No!” Ginny didn’t know she was going to scream until she did, and then, then she couldn’t stop. “No, you do  _ not _ get to call me that anymore. You, you told me you loved me,” whispered at night into her ears, smiled into their kisses, muttered into her shoulders on lazy Saturday mornings, “you said you’d never leave, you said we were forever,” afternoons spent discussing their future home, one day, their dream jobs, always together, together, surviving, living,  _ happy _ , “and then you dump me, because you ‘fell in love’?”

Ginny took a deep, deep, broken breath, dropping her head, anger flowing out of her alarmingly fast, leaving her small and sad and  _ broken _ . “You-- I thought. I thought you fell in love with me.” Ginny couldn’t hide the way her shoulders were shaking, couldn’t hide the way her voice was cracking. She couldn’t  _ hide _ . “I thought you  _ loved _ me.”

There was silence, the kind that dragged on, the kind that made you overly aware of the fact that you were crying in your quidditch practise gear in front of your ex-boyfriend because he didn’t love you. Because he didn’t choose you. Or perhaps that silence was unique to Ginny, she didn’t know. Never thought to ask her teammates. 

Harry’s voice was heavy when he answered, heavy in the way it was when he had to deliver all those eulogies at countless of funerals after the war, each one hitting him as hard as the next even as the numbers started to blur into the triple digits. It was that voice, that heavy, sad voice saying, “I’m so sorry,” that cemented the hopelessness in Ginny’s chest. That voice meant Harry had already buried her. That she, them, what they had, was already dead to him, already gone. Never to return. “I never meant to hurt you. I really didn’t want to hurt you.”

Harry’s voice was soft, consoling,  _ sorry _ , and every word felt like a slap to the face, a crude little reminder that her hopes and dreams and  _ love _ , that warm, thick, sweet feeling now turning sour in her mouth was being returned to her. Was being rejected with a sad smile and a pat to the head, was waved away with words of condolences, but rejected all the same. Not enough all the same. 

Ginny could hear he was done, could hear it in the rhythm and tread of his words, could see it in the pained frown on his face. But she couldn’t help herself from trying, one more time, couldn’t stop herself. Deep down, she was still the little girl who had sent the Great Harry Potter a silly little poem on Valentine’s day, and, at the moment, that little girl was crying and insisting this wasn’t happening, that this wasn’t true. “Please.” Her voice was soft, quavering, but by the way Harry’s mouth twisted, she knew he could hear her. “Please, don’t do this. Please, Harry, stay with me. Love  _ me _ . Don’t… don’t leave me.”

Harry was shaking his head even before Ginny finished, face anguished, tears dripping from his own eyes. “No, I’m so,  _ so _ sorry, Ginny. But no.” 

Ginny knew his answer wouldn’t be positive, she  _ knew _ , but still, with his words, something inside her broke, and tore, something like a light, and she felt herself being plunged into darkness so deep it reminded her of being dragged down to Tom Riddle’s lair. Which Harry saved her from. Except… he’s not coming, not this time. This time he led her there himself, he put the light out himself, he’s leaving her there by  _ choice _ . 

  
And there’s nothing,  _ nothing _ she could do except watch him walk away and sink down on the damp locker room floor, too broken to do anything but sit, and stare, and  _ cry _ . 

**Author's Note:**

> I've felt for a long time that people tended to neglect Ginny's side of the story when Harry and Draco get together. I am a firm believer in the fact that Harry and Draco belong together, but I also don't think Ginny is as okay as a lot of fics make it out to be. This was her childhood love. Her first love. I went looking for fics that explored those themes, found none, and this happened. I hope you like it, and please let me know what you think.
> 
> Twitter:  
> [booksandtea15](https://twitter.com/booksandtea15)


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